TROPICS Vol. 17 (4) Issued October 15, 2008 Unforced control of fishing activities as a result of coexistence with underwater protected areas in Lake Malawi National Park, East Africa 1＊ 2 3 4 Tetsu SATO , Naoki MAKIMOTO , Davie MWAFULIRWA and Shinji MIZOIRI 1 Nagano University, Faculty of Tourism and Environmental Studies Ueda, Nagano, Japan 2 Aichi Prefecture, Japan 3 Lake Malawi National Park, Republic of Malawi 4 Tokyo Institute of Technology, Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yokohama, Japan ＊Corresponding author; Tel: 0268-39-0001, E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT We made a detailed study of fishing inappropriate law enforcement, lack of incentives for activities by artisanal fishermen using gill nets CBM, economic pressures, and other reasons (Hackel, and ecology of their target catfishes in 2000 and 1999, Newman, 2001, but see Nishizaki (2004) for 2001 in Lake Malawi National Park in east Africa, successful examples). where fishing activities seemed to coexist with the Fishes of the Great Lakes of East Africa (Lakes regulations of underwater protected areas (PAs) Malawi, Tanganyika and Victoria) are vital protein and fish stocks seemed to be maintained well. The resources for people in riparian countries. Under overall ratio of the illegal nets in the PAs was 26%. pressure of population growth and poverty, the fish Even though there was no effective law enforcement stocks in these lakes show various degree of over activity by the national park authority, fishermen exploitation (Goudswaard et al. 2002, O’Reilly et al. 2003, tended to avoid setting nets near the boarder of PAs Malawi Sustainable Development Network Programme, in the areas directly visible from the village, and 1998). Attempts have been made to manage these fish they tended to use small cryptic buoys when they resources by controlling fishing with regulation of fishing set nets inside the PAs. A large coastal area was gears and seasons, protected areas, and community relatively less exploited as a result of this unforced based management. However, under increasing demand control, probably resulting in current good stock for fishery products, inappropriate law enforcement status of catfishes. We discuss the reasons of this caused by insufficient funding and human resources, unforced control in the light of acceptance of, and and conflicts between local fishers and enforcement coexistence with the national park, interaction with authorities have often resulted in continuing degradation external scientists, and local leadership. of fish stocks and other resources (Scholtz et al. 1998) Lake Malawi National Park was established in 1980 Key words: underwater protected areas (PAs), gill to protect endemic cichlid species occurring in shallow net fishing, reserved fishing activities, acceptance rocky areas (Anonymous, 1981). It consists of underwater of regulation, indigenous knowledge, leadership, protected areas (PAs) within 100m distance from the Lake Malawi shore and land protected areas (Smith, 1993). Five fishing villages exist in the park, and Chembe village is the largest with ca. 15000 populations. Artisanal fishermen INTRODUCTION engaged in various fishing activities including gill-netting Sustainable management of natural resources is targeting large catfishes. Although the areas across the the most important environmental issue in developing boarder of underwater PAs were a good fishing ground countries where natural resources are vital to human for these catfishes, and virtually no enforcement had been livelihood. Various attempts have been made to establish made by the National Park authorities (Makimoto, 1999), effective management systems by setting protected areas catfish stocks seemed to be maintained well and the and introducing community-based management protocols presence of the underwater protected areas (PAs) was (Anderson and Grove, 1989, Western and Wright, 1994). generally accepted by the villagers with little conflicts. However, these attempts have often been hampered by In order to understand factors affecting this 336 Tetsu SATO, Naoki MAKIMOTO, Davie MWAFULIRWA and Shinji MIZOIRI coexistence of fishing activities and regulations of the fishermen set their nets in the evening and retrieve them PAs accompanied with seemingly good stock status in the early morning of the following day. We patrolled of catfishes, we made detailed study of the fishing on the lake along the boarder of the PAs in the evening behavior of artisanal fishermen using gill nets, the catch between 1630 to 1800 hours just after the most fishermen assessment on the landing beach, and ecology of their finished setting nets (Fig. 1). When we found buoys of gill target catfishes in 2000 and 2001 at Chembe village with nets on the lake, we recorded their positions with a GPS the following assumptions. and the depth of water using a portable echo sounder. We (1) There may be some factors in fishing patterns of also recorded the size, shape and material of the buoy artisanal fishermen which may contribute to good stock for identification of the nets and their owner. In total, we status of the catfishes. made these censuses for 35 days. (2) These factors may develop through the We made censuses of the nets landed on the beach interactions between local community and the National of Chembe village in the early morning of the following Park. (3) Inflow of external scientific knowledge and local leadership may play certain roles in shaping fishermen’s attitude to the PAs regulations and their fishing patterns. In this paper, we analyze the fishing patterns and catches of catfishes in relation to PAs in the light of results of anecdotal interviews and observations of villager’s behavior, and discuss the possible indirect effect of the underwater protected areas to the fishermen’ s behavior without effective law enforcement. METHODS We conducted field surveys at Chembe village (including adjacent Dwale village) located at the tip of Cape Maclear, Lake Malawi National Park from 2 January 2000 to 6 March 2001. We visited the village for a few days at an interval of 2 to 4weeks, and conducted census of the netting sites of the gill net fishing along the boarder of the underwater protected areas (Fig. 1) and made assessments of catches of gill netting. Gill nets (locally called Machera) are consisted of a net of 200m to 1km in length (commonly from 200 to 300m) with mesh sizes ranging from 2.5 to 15cm and a height of 1m, ropes at the both ends, and two buoys at the other ends of the ropes. Gill nets are one of the simplest and low cost fishing gears. The buoys are made from PET bottles, Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the study area and census styroform blocks, pieces of woods and other routs. Census was made each evening by following the everyday materials, and have characteristic regular observation rout by boat. Catch assessment and interviews were conducted at the landing sites along the shapes and sizes in order for the fishermen beach in the villages in the morning of the subsequent to identify their own nets on the lake. Gill net day. See text for details. Unforced control of netting by artisanal fishermen in Malawi 337 day from 0530 to 8000 hours (38 days). When we found In order to assess the effectiveness of enforcement a gill net, we recorded the sizes, shapes and materials by the National Park Office, we interviewed National of buoys at both ends of the net, mesh sizes, height of Park officers and fishermen for the frequencies of the the nets, and their owner. The pair of the buoys of each patrols on the lake. net was identified and used for matching positional data of the buoys belonging to the same nets. We recorded the species, approximate weights, numbers and prices RESULTS of fishes of each species for the nets that we found on Table 1 summarizes the numbers of gill nets in relation the lake on the previous days. Additional censuses were to the underwater protected areas (PAs). In total, we made for 18 days in order to record the characteristics of identified fishing sites of 385 gill nets (daily mean of 11.0 the buoys and assessment of the catches. We haphazardly ± 4.8SD nets) belonging to Chembe (including Dwale), made interviews of the net owners, fishermen and other and matched the buoys at both ends for 60 nets on the villagers to record length of the net, prices of fishes, their attitude towards regulations of the National Park, and important events in the village related to fishing. A large Bagrid catfish, B a g r u s meridionalis, is known locally as Kampango, and targeted by some gill net fishermen as an important commercial species. The catfish is sold on the beach for smoking with good prices, carried to large cities and consumed. This species is known to perform biparental guarding of eggs and young in shallow water during rainy seasons for up to three months until the young grow up to 100 mm in length. During the parental guarding, the female parents regularly spawn unfertilized trophic eggs to feed their young (Mackeye, 1986, LoVullo et al. 1992, Sato and Mwaflirwa, unpublished observation). As they gather at the shallow water to make nests and stay at the same place for a long period, they are a good target of the gill net and long line fishing. They are vulnerable for fishing pressure because shallow water fishing is likely to harvest breeding pairs. We therefore conducted regular underwater observations of the distribution of their breeding nests, and compared it to the distributions of netting sites. During the breeding seasons of Kampango from September 1999 to April 2000 and November 2000 to March 2001, we regularly dived along the coasts of the PAs at the depths from 0 to 40m at an interval of 2 to 4 weeks. We recorded rough positions of the Fig.